


How does it feel to be dead? (I say)

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [285]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Brotherly Love, Celegorm is doing his best to speak to Maedhros in their shared language, Conversations, Gen, Nonverbal Communication, but it's not the same as it was, nothing is, title from a poem by Ai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25837738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: I know you fought something fierce.
Relationships: Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Fingon | Findekáno, Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Maedhros | Maitimo, Fingon | Findekáno & Maedhros | Maitimo
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [285]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	How does it feel to be dead? (I say)

Maitimo doesn’t say a word about the blades. I won’t bring them out again, but Fingon’s as much at fault as I am for _that_ ruckus.

Fingon thinks he’s some pumpkins, really. He oughtn’t. Being a proper doctor is nothing to anyone here, most times. We’ve all had to ply our hand at stitching gashes and setting joints. He’s just had a little more practice.

“You can be honest,” I say, just to be certain that Maitimo _doesn’t_ have a bone to pick. “How goes it?”

He looks back at me with that flat, unblinking sickbed stare that’s always sent a shiver down my spine. I’ve never seen it from him, till these last weeks, but I’d rather be seeing him than not, so I stand and bear it. Sit and bear it, in truth. I’ve taken Fingon’s chair, to wait out the time until supper.

“Have I lied?”

He’s lied a good deal, in his life. Sometimes to me. I’d bloody anyone who said as much to him now. He doesn’t need the trouble of worrying over truth or fiction. I think in terms of _mad_ and _not mad_.

“You’ve been awful quiet,” I say, to this very end. Fingon is trying some new plan of near-isolation. He still comes in and out on his errands, fool or otherwise. I suppose some of them _must_ have use. But when I come to sit by Maitimo, he largely leaves us be. Caranthir says it’s the same with him.

Not that I speak much to Caranthir.

“You want to hear, do you?”

I try to keep my eyes from following how the scar on the bridge of his nose twitches when he speaks. His nose was always the finest in our family. Athair’s was a little too thin to be _perfect_ , if you cared about that sort of thing. As I hadn’t a choice but to grow up around paint swabs and half-finished sculptures, I became accustomed to studying features and judging them for all they were worth. That sort of knowledge has returned to me now, though I no longer want it.

“I know you fought something fierce,” I say, hanging my heels off the rung of the chair I’m set on. I’m not one for making conversation on its own account. He knows that.

If he’s still himself, he’ll know what I’m trying for, better than I know myself.

He asks, “Do you truly think that?”

I don’t want to say, _they cut off your hand for something_ , because that’s a sight too far. “Come, Maitimo. I’ve seen how they marked you up. Hopping mad, were they?”

There’s a little silence between us. Little, but it _feels_ long as a summer afternoon, and I let it burn me.

“I didn’t always keep a civil tongue in my head.”

How many stories did he cast aside before answering? I say, “I should hope not.”

“Left a few marks of my own.” It’s not his voice. It’s not his look.

I say, sickly, “The brats you brought back seem proud of you.”

He shrugs under his blankets—blankets he must be tired of. “Children only admire me for being tall.”

I laugh, though humor’s a step off still. Maitimo lies to make himself seem smaller, too; that’s the wicked wonder of it. I never know when I ought to play at being Maglor and tell him to think better of himself. This time, instead, I thrust myself down. I say, as airy as Ris can be in her finer moments, “They don’t think much of _me_.”

“Nonsense. Sticks, now. I think she likes you.”

“She’s all right. For a girl.”

“Oh, come off it. You’ve always been fond of Aredhel.”

“True.” I’ve a question about Ris, but I won’t put it to him quite yet. “What about this…Estrela? She the mother of those children?”

“No. Just a friend.”

“She’s interesting.” I don’t mind her, though her face is hell to look upon. I know she cares for him, and I know he trusts her. This is the sort of thing I can allow. No one-eyed woman will ever forget her place, as Curufin would say. No one-eyed woman will threaten us.

Maitimo’s gaze shifts sideways, thoughtful. “She saved my hide a few times—what hide there was.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It’s that particular arrogance of being tall, you see. I would fall into pits I couldn’t climb out of. Trapped as you might trap a rabbit, and then, hey, along the hunter comes to skin ‘em.”

It would be bad sport to wince. I don’t believe he’s trying to hurt me.

He goes on, thankfully. We go on. “She’s a dab hand at bandages.”

Just as I said to myself a moment ago. You needn’t be a doctor. “And Gwindor?”

“Do you like him?” Maitimo asks, as eager as I’ve seen him yet. I nod, to encourage him, and he says, rather satisfied, “I thought you might.”

“Why?” I have to know everything. Everything he’ll tell me.

He considers, and I try not to notice that the light outside the window is fading. That means Fingon’s steps will echo, echo, and cry out like a rider calling _halt_ , before too much longer.

“You’ve both little time for nonsense,” he says. “And you’ve both looked after me.”

“I—”

“Sometimes,” Maitimo says quickly, twisting under that damn heap of bedclothes, “Sometimes, if my head was very knocked-about, I would talk to you. And you’d always warn me.”

“Warn you?” I’m all but whispering. I’m all but blind, for trying so hard to _see_.

“Yes,” he says. “Warn me not to be a fool.”

Just like that, he’s lost to me again. I can’t follow. I can’t understand why he’d reach to think of me in that hellhole, only for me to come and chide him.

But this is everything, it seems, that he intends to tell me at present. As such, I play his part.

“I’ll warn you now,” I say, “You’ll turn to lard and loose string, lying there. Isn’t Fingon doctor enough to have you walking?”

“It’s not Fingon’s fault. One of my legs is fucked,” he says. Lord, but it’s good to hear him curse again. “He’s been precious about testing it.”

“He’s precious about goddamn _everything_. But you could stand, couldn’t you? If you wanted?”

“Likely. Depends on how quickly I was allowed to topple.” He grins, mostly teeth. “Like an ass, on my own.”

“Hmm.” I wish I could see the leg more closely, test it a little—gently, so as not to hurt him. Even if he were raving mad and clawing at me, I wouldn’t hurt him, or want to. I don’t think anyone not a hunter could understand what I mean.

But it’s not just the gun or the bow or the knife that harms. It’s the way you run. The way you hold.

How fast you kill.

“When I’m stepping, you’ll be soon to know,” Maitimo assures me. There is a furrow in his brow, half a scar itself. I don’t remember it from before, but there’s little to remember from before. Even his hair—Gwindor says they cut it off. His hair and his hand and a good deal of skin, all ravaged. That’s how you’d treat a beast you’d trapped or taken down.

That’s how you’d treat its _carcass_. A beast is a dumb, sensitive creature whose misery should never bring you joy. _Never_ , if you’re to be a decent hunter.

Maitimo isn’t a beast, but they stripped him slowly, while he lived.

I still don’t know why.

My mouth opens and words flow out of it. In a way, we’re just alike—he won’t tell me all he suffered, and I can’t tell him what I saw. Not yet. Not until darkness has fallen a little heavier. Not until he has grown a little stronger.

I’m talking of Aredhel when I come to my senses again, swimming up from under the past. “She’ll come and visit, if you wish,” I say. “She’s just like always, ‘cept she knows how to shoot straight, now.”

“An indispensable skill,” Maitimo says.

I should be grateful for how long we’ve had uninterrupted by Fingon and his ilk. Gwindor isn’t half-bad, but he’s too proprietary of a sickroom that isn’t his own.

“Aredhel has always been clever with both hands,” I venture. “Saw her move her bow and knives between 'em, when we were hunting just the other day.”

“An indispensable girl,” Maitimo says. He seems amused at me, which isn’t at all what I expected, skirting close to the subject of his…his hand. “Well, Celegorm, the more the merrier—as I am sure you have never said. If you think she won’t be too flummoxed by the sight of me—”

“Never!”

“Ah—you must be careful of that. People become…queer over the subject of ugliness.”

When he’s being his distant scholarly self, there’s nothing I can do about it. I just shrug, with the most mulish set to my shoulders I can manage, and I say, “I’ll be the first to kill anyone who does you harm, Maitimo—in word or deed or hell, even a look.”

Then, to be clever myself, I add again,

“I warn you of that.”


End file.
